I’ve been kind of MIA…spending more time working. Didn’t want to let another Harvest Monday go by, though, so here’s what I’ve harvested over the past two weeks:

Before we get to the current stuff, here’s one I missed last time.. …two of the last cantaloupes. I’ll update my harvest tally (eventually) to show the weights, but both of these were ripe and juicy. They’re worth growing, even with the aggravation of dealing with those *&^# squirrels.

The big picture and the first of the smaller pictures are me having fun with my veggies. They are the same day’s harvest. The bigger picture looks to me like a Zulu warrior mask, and the other one looks like a crazy happy skull. I’ve gotten kind of lazy about weighing and photographing everything, so I know I missed at least a couple cherry tomato harvests.

Picture 2 of the smaller pictures taken was a few days after I pulled a lot of the tomato plants from the yard (9-14-10), that’s why there are small green Brandywines included. And the bell peppers are coloring up. They’re not sizing up, but they are getting some color.

I’m slowly doing things here and there to get the garden ready for winter. I picked all of the peppers (harvested yesterday, 9-19-10)……for a total of 11 pounds 4 ounces from the 11 plants. Not terrible considering I’ve got enough in the freezer already to last me until next summer and I made a bunch of stuffed peppers which I froze and slowly pulled out of the freezer and consumed each and every one of them.

Gregory is doing a hoop house over the winter and he’s planning on putting the pepper plants in there to see if he’ll be able to harvest a warm season veggie in the cold temperatures of the winter in the hoop house. It will be interesting to see what happens.

I wasn’t disappointed with the Big Berthas. These three were growing on one plant, and the biggest two were 9.3 ounces and 9.l ounces. The actual plant was at least five feet tall. I’m six feet and it came to just past my shoulders. I’ll be hunting down this variety next year (hybrid, won’t save seeds).

I also picked yesterday some collards from my one remaining plant and some of the Russian kale (which I was so anxious to cook I forgot to photograp), some stalks of celery from the three plants…

…which weigh next to nothing when you remove the leaves from the stalks, and a few pods of okra, which went into the pot with the greens.

I’m down to cherry tomatoes, Swiss chard, and waiting as long as I can for the sweet potatoes. EG harvested his sweet potatoes and did great. I’m hoping I’ll get something decent when mine are harvested.

That’s it for my latest harvests. Share what you’ve harvested. Stop by Daphne’s Dandelions, link up with Mr. Linky, and tell the blogosphere what you’re harvesting in your neck of the woods.

There’s slim pickin’s ‘roun these ‘ere parts. Not a whole lot to show off for this Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne at Dandelions. But will I let that stop me? Never. And you should participate too. Remember, all harvests, big and small.

I’m down to cucumbers, tomatoes, a few beans and the occasional greens. I let my disgust with the squirrels affect my judgment again. I didn’t realize how disgusted I was at the lost of my watermelons, but after that is when I cleared out the squash area, which I recently replanted with a few lettuce, chard, radish, turnips and mustards. A few days ago, I pulled the bushy marigold and patio basil plants from the newest bed. I also harvested the volunteer cantaloupe and cleared out the vines. The thought today is to pull the three cherry tomatoes in that bed when the majority of the tomatoes ripen, and in the meanwhile throw some lettuce seeds in the bed. If the mood is still with me, it will be easy enough to cover the bed and keep things going into the fall.

I kind of forgot to show the videos of the rest of the garden tour, so here they are…even though today the garden is looking much different than when the video was taken.

And the volunteer cantaloupe? 6 pounds 4 ounces of unripened almost garden goodness.

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Yes, I put the cantaloupe’s weight into my 2010 Harvest Tally as of 08-29-10 because, well, I need all the pounds I can get. We can also say it balances out the ripe watermelons that the squirrels got that didn’t get weighed. 2765.4 ounces which converts to 174.83 pounds harvested from my little back yard.

There is one nice thing going on in the garden……the second round of raspberries are maturing. I might actually get a chance to eat a few if the ants don’t beat me to them all.

Before we get to the Harvest Monday, who can guess what’s wrong with this picture?

This week I’ve had as much garden carnage as I’ve had garden harvest. Those *%#$ing squirrels destroyed both of my sugarbaby watermelons I had in slings on the fence.

And you see that watermelon there on the fence?Nah, I guess you don’t. A few days ago you would have seen a watermelon the size of a baseball. Now all you see is the stem the wonderful squirrels left when they stole the baby watermelon. Then they went after the last watermelon planted in the newest bed and put a hole in it. (Tuna can for size perspective). When I cut it open it hadn’t ripened anyway. So, this was not the year of the watermelon around these parts.

I hope my neighbor has better luck with his. I was walking to the store and saw this.His whole front yard is filled with watermelon vines. He said he was eating a slice of watermelon and decided to bury a few of the seeds. Awesome.

Anybody guess what’s wrong with the picture on the seed packet yet?

Since one of my biggest muskmelons is on the ground, I got nervous that the squirrels would beat me to it and I went ahead and picked it.

It was just this side of ripe. I’m sure a few more days would have made a difference.

Any guesses on the picture yet? I’ll give you a hint. There’s nothing wrong with the melons. I planted melons, I grew melons. And I am saving seeds. There are tons of seeds in these melons. So, if anybody’s interested, I’m happy to share.

I couldn’t find my camera batteries for a few days, so here’s a consolidated picture of my harvests for 8-16, 8-18 and 8-20.I’ve got four okra plants that are giving me plenty of okra for seasoning the greens. The yard long beans that are left are being saved for seed for next year. The Armenian cukes despite half the plants being infected with mildew and drying up are still eking out a cuke or two. The second planting of beans and cukes are producing now. 8-20-10 I picked the last squash for the season because I pulled the vines for the watermelons and the squash to clear a little space for lettuce or swiss chard or spinach.

My daughter’s boyfriend thought it a little strange that I weighed my vegetables before they could be eaten, but all that good information went into the database and now I can say stuff like, “According to my 2010 Harvest Tally as of 08-22-10, I’ve harvested a minimum of 60 squash from three plants from 6-2-10 to 8-20-10 which weighed 419.1 ounces which converts to 26.19 pounds.” Definitely a plant worth growing.

Harvested 8-22-10: Pickling cukes, which I pickled; one brandywine, which I froze; 4 okra pods, which I froze; 1 bell pepper which had a little hole in it, which I trimmed and froze; a few bush beans, which I froze; stevia leaves, which I’m drying; cherry tomatoes, which are sitting on the counter developing their scrumpdeliciousness.

Last hint. Here’s my muskmelon/cantaloupe growing on the fence.

And the answer is…(drum roll, please)

…whoever staged the melons paired it with the wrong leaf. The leaves on the seed packet are watermelon leaves. You can tell by the serrations in the leaves. Cantaloupe/muskmelon leaves are more rounded.

Did you catch the mistake?

Enough with the plant quiz. Head on over to Daphne’s Dandelions and check out what folks are harvesting from their gardens.

Harvest Monday, hosted by Daphne of Daphne’s Dandelions, a chance to post pics of the produce you’ve garnered from your garden. Take a few minutes to visit her site and view the varied veggies grown by gardeners around the globe.

For me it’s Harvest Tuesday. Baby needs a new pair of shoes so I have to force myself to spend less time on all things garden related and concentrate more on getting some work done. But I couldn’t miss out on Harvest Monday since I can shamelessly show off my little harvests. So here’s mine. (no tally today as I haven’t taken the time to put in the numbers).

A couple brandywine tomatoes, a couple Big Bertha peppers, one squash, some cherry tomatoes. The full sized tomatoes came from the Early Girl plant. I took most of them off so I could harvest them before the squirrels got another one. Horrible little beasts!!!

Harvested 8-9-10

One jalapeno pepper, okra pods, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, squash, a few yard long beans and the first beans from the newest planting of bush beans.

A few kale, collard and brussles sprout leaves, one okra pod, one brandywine tomato, one early girl tomato, cherry tomatoes and…

…MY FIRST CANTALOUPE/MUSKMELON

This is the first melon to set. I was walking past and noticed that the melon was on the yellow side. When I went to pick it, the stem had already come apart from the melon. It was perfect. So sweet and the juices were almost as thick as syrup. I hope the others are half as good as this one.